I bake to share the sweetness. One small way to celebrate Christmas light and fight the darkness in this world. Cookies are such a simple, delicious item to share with people. Sweets won’t guarantee a “perfect” Christmas, but they can help salvage a difficult one.

My husband and I just returned from a visit to Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. We walked the rail-trail between the railroad tracks and the Lehigh River, bundled up against the chilly air, and waved to the families and excited children riding the Santa train as it passed.

We soaked in the lights and the music, the adorable shops loaded with gifts and the Old World architecture of this small, bustling town at Christmastime and visited our favorite spots. 

On our getaway ritual, we rested up for this week’s final push of holiday preparations.

Busy week ahead! Still, I’m going to make time to bake.

I bake to share the sweetness. One small way to celebrate Christmas light and fight the darkness in this world. Cookies are such a simple, delicious item to share with people. Sweets won’t guarantee a “perfect” Christmas, but they can help salvage a difficult one.

One biscotti, two biscotti

Today, the winter solstice and shortest day of the year, seems like a perfect time to buckle down and decide the holiday baking. This morning, my head swam with memories and recipes, inspiration and possibilities. 

Crisp and sweet, delightful cut-out shapes of sugar cookies with a simple dusting of colorful sanding sugar. Or, perhaps this is the year to attempt to ice them into colorful designs?

Long and thin biscotti cookies for dunking into coffee or hot chocolate … Mmmmm — but which kind? Apricot-almond-white chocolate biscotti from Bon Appetit magazine has been my go-to Christmas treat for decades, and I’m quite tempted to try a dried cherry and pistachio version from the King Arthur Baking Co., always inspiring and reliable.

Pie is my year-round favorite — except, mysteriously, at Christmastime. 

For me, Christmas and New Year’s celebrations call for rich, chocolate cake. 

A decadent chocolate cake, baked in a Bundt pan and slathered with a poured frosting of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips from a recipe in a miniature book of Silver Palate desserts I keep beside the KitchenAid stand mixer. The little book falls open to that sugar-dusted page with the “Decadent Chocolate Cake.”

Early one December morning a few years ago, I made Melissa Clark’s Whiskey-Soaked Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake from a New York Times recipe to bring to a holiday gathering that night. As I tasted the batter left behind in the bowl, I realized I was getting woozy on whiskey at 7 a.m. and stopped.

Let’s save that one for New Year’s.

The Christmas Blues & Shadows

Nor would I make a chocolate cheesecake. None will ever measure up to a gorgeous chocolate cheesecake that turned out to be a brightest spot of a spoiled Christmas dinner. 

Let’s acknowledge the sour, painful parts of the holidays for a lot of people. I tend to get bogged down in a little patch of the Christmas blues right after Thanksgiving — until we put up a tree with lights. All those little twinkle lights help me as the days get shorter and shorter. A relatively easy fix. Then I truly relish all the messages of joy, the light, peace and hope of the holiday season.

We never know the private struggles and burdens of the people we cross paths with. Loads of people are heading into their first Christmas after losing a loved one. This can be such a loaded, painful time. Some people are alone. Many are estranged from those they love. 

We’re bombarded by images that don’t seem to acknowledge how complicated families can be and how thorny and messy these times are for families.

Can a few cookies fix it? No — but maybe their sweetness can soften some difficult moments. Some holidays are just hard, I suppose.

Some Holidays are just Messy and Hard

One Christmas long ago, before I met my husband, another family member and I planned to shop and cook a fun and joyful Christmas dinner for four. We had a fun time browsing the butcher and produce stands at Cleveland’s iconic, open-air West Side Market. 

We picked out a perfect roast of beef and carrots, parsnips and potatoes. Some yellow onions. Some plump lemons, and fresh herbs. For dessert, I made the most gorgeous chocolate cheesecake you’ve ever seen. 

It turned out beautifully, rising rich and creamy in a lovely swollen hill above the top of its springform pan. The recipe? I’m not sure. I’ve failed to find it. Maybe the cookbook of chocolate treats from the Chocolate Church in Bath, Maine? But when I’ve paged through my mother’s copy of that cookbook, none of the recipes seems quite right. 

That Christmas morning, I enjoyed opening gifts over coffee and breakfast with my mom and stepfather, then packed up that beautiful cheesecake to help cook Christmas dinner in another kitchen across town. 

I arrived to learn one of the dogs had stolen and gobbled up the parsnips. No big deal. 

We settled into cooking. Awhile later, we discovered that instead of “almost done!” the roast was still raw. The oven had mysteriously, mistakenly been shut off. 

A Spoiled Christmas Dinner

Too much wine filled the delay. An argument of historic proportions broke out over a gag gift that wasn’t funny, and consumed two of the four of us. Alleycats fighting in the dark night would have scattered at the sounds.

Meanwhile, the oven now at the proper temperature, the roast cooked away. Two of us attempted to restore the peace — at least long enough to have a nice dinner together and salvage the holiday meal.

It was not to be. The two people embroiled in the argument left. The third forced down some food to take his medicine. 

Dazed, I ate a little. We talked a little. No one wanted cheesecake. My appetite for chocolate cheesecake had vanished, but I refused to waste it. 

I left a few slices behind, then packed it up for the freezer and took it home to Pennsylvania. Into March of the next year, I pulled out a small section at a time to share with good friends, as I told the story of the Christmas dinner disaster. 

It was rather awful to watch, and especially painful for the two people embroiled in the argument.

But over the years, that part and the disappointment has faded for me. What I most remember is that airy, rich chocolate cheesecake. As time passes, the chocolate cheesecake becomes taller, richer and sweeter in my imagination.

Cookies (and Cake)

OK. I’ve decided: Both kinds of biscotti, some simple star and snowflake sugar cookies and a batch of cookies with the sour cream dough wrapped around apricot and cherry filling — like my grandmother made. Cookies are sweet connection. Probably the decadent chocolate cake, too.

Cookies and cakes never guarantee a great Christmas, of course. Just simple, handmade ways to share sweetness with family and friends — that might even help some of us through a rough holiday.

Wishing you sweet, joyful holidays full of light and love.